No let up from Hunt in chase for perfect season 

The weight of a championship fight is off his shoulders but Brian Green Property Group New Zealand Rally champion Ben Hunt is heading to Waitomo with that same steely determination as he hopes to be the first driver ever to complete the perfect season.

Hunt secured his second career title at Coromandel last month having won all five rounds of the 2019 championship.

He is now preparing for the final round of the year hoping to make it a perfect six from six.

“It is awesome to have won five from five and won the New Zealand championship again,” Hunt said. “Like I said at the start of the year we want to go out there and do the best we can at every rally and we want to finish every rally.

“We put a lot of work into car prep and all that and to finish first, first you must finish so that has been our main goal all year.

“We will go to Waitomo no different to how we went to Otago at the start of this year.

“We’ll have fun in the car and with the fun comes results.”

Hunt wants to complete the set of rally victories this year as much to thank those that have assisted him achieve the title.

There are countless hours in the workshop and away at rallies that the team members put in and Hunt wants to reward them.

“It is some people’s jobs and they refer to the rally car as an office but if I start to refer to it as an office then I don’t want to be doing it anymore because that is lame.

“I love being in the rally car – it is a treat.

“We love the sport and we are passionate about it. All my mates that crew for me – we are like a big family that goes away together and have fun together.

“We did have a tough year and a half when we built that car so it is great to have a good year.

“I think that is what I am most proud of.

“I am not a very emotional person but when we won the championship in Coromandel – I probably didn’t show it as much as some people do. It was definitely a neat feeling.

“The last few years we have been a little unlucky with championships and been second a few times.”

Having been voted by his peers as the best driver in the championship and having put together the results to back that theory up, Hunt is thinking about his next challenge.

“I still love the sport and I am pretty keen to look at building another car or something like that and try to improve on some of the things we did with this car,” he said.

“It as an awesome car but there is so much more you could do.

“The best thing about my car is you can go down to the Winger’s dealership or any other Subaru dealership and you can buy my car off the production line and it looks awesome.

“There is Dylan Thomson and a few others in a production-based car but not current model so to be doing it in a production-based car with 80% of the factory running gear and basically a Group N plus car with a sequential gearbox and probably a little bit lighter than a Group N car – I think that is where my car stands out.

“The AP4 cars are awesome but I just love being in that car and driving a Subaru.”

The 2019 New Zealand Rally Championship is proudly supported by Brian Green Property Group, Gull New Zealand, Dunlop New Zealand, HELLA New Zealand, Stadium Finance, Omega Rental Cars and Suzuki New Zealand.